The PEERS® Curriculum for School-Based Professionals: Social Skills Training for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The PEERS® Curriculum for School-Based Professionals brings UCLA's highly acclaimed and widely popular PEERS program into the school setting.

This sixteen-week program, clinically proven to significantly improve social skills and social interactions among teens with autism spectrum disorder, is now customised for the needs of psychologists, counsellors, speech pathologists, administrators, and teachers.

The manual is broken down into clearly divided lesson plans, each of which have concrete rules and steps, corresponding homework assignments, plans for review, and unique, fun activities to ensure that teens are comfortable incorporating what they've learned.

The curriculum also includes parent handouts, tips for preparing for each lesson, strategies for overcoming potential pitfalls, and the research underlying this transformative program.

Table of Contents

List of Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements

About the Author

1. Getting Started
2. Week 1: Introduction and Trading Information
3. Week 2: Two Way Conversations
4. Week 3: Electronic Communication
5. Week 4: Choosing Appropriate Friends
6. Week 5: Appropriate Use of Humor
7. Week 6: Starting and Joining Conversations
8. Week 7: Exiting Conversations
9. Week 8: Good Sportsmanship
10. Week 9: Get-Togethers
11. Week 10: Handling Arguments
12. Week 11: Changing Reputations
13. Week 12: Handling Teasing and Embarrassing Feedback
14. Week 13: Avoiding Physical Bullying
15. Week 14: Handling Cyber Bullying
16. Week 15: Minimizing Rumors and Gossip
17. Week 16: Final Review, Post-Test Assessment, and Graduation

References

Index

"This book is so very timely. The well-known and widely used PEERS® social skills training program has been adopted in many clinical settings. By taking the program into schools, and also demonstrating the effectiveness of the program via research studies, Laugeson and her team have produced a manual that the education sector has been asking for. It will be widely adopted and deserves to be so."
- Tony Charman, PhD, chair in clinical child psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK

"The PEERS® program is evidence-based, accessible to school-based practitioners, and enjoyable for the students! We have needed something like this for a long time, so it's great that this is now available. This program has clear potential to make a positive difference in the lives of students with ASD."
- Susan White, PhD, associate professor of psychology, codirector of the Virginia Tech Autism Clinic, and assistant director of the Child Study Center at Virginia Tech

"The PEERS® curriculum is an important advancement in social-skills training for teens with autism. This thoughtful, ecologically valid intervention is time limited, makes reasonable demands on teachers, students, and parents, and has shown remarkable outcomes when implemented in schools. I strongly encourage schools to use this program as an important component of a comprehensive program to increase successful social participation among adolescents on the spectrum."
- David Mandell, director of the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and associate director of the Center for Autism Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

"In an area where few resources exist, this manualized approach offers a guide for teaching social skills to teens with autism and related conditions. It will be of interest to teachers, school psychologists, speech pathologists, and others who deal with this important area."
- Fred R. Volkmar, MD, Irving B. Harris Professor and director of the Child Study Center at the Yale University School of Medicine